The West’s united front on Ukraine is showing more cracks than ever — and Kyiv has little choice but to grin and bear it.
More than 500 days into Russia’s full-scale invasion, Republican lawmakers in Washington DC on Saturday derailed an effort to unleash a major tranche of aid for the war-torn country.
Coming just nine days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington to plead for continued support, the blockage underscored a hardening of attitudes among congressional Republicans who want to end Washington’s assistance for Kyiv.
At the same time as Republicans were voting ‘no’ on Capitol Hill, voters in Slovakia elected a pro-Russian prime minister, Robert Fico, who vows not to send a “single round” of ammunition to Ukraine, and looks set to team up with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbàn to oppose further European support for Kyiv. Poland, once the most dependable of Kyiv’s allies, made the shock announcement on September 20 that it would no longer send weapons.
These warning signs don’t amount to a profound policy shift in Washington or Brussels. U.S. President Joe Biden has vowed to stand by Ukraine despite the budget fiasco. And most European leaders remain staunchly supportive of Ukraine, with some €50 billion in continued support for the country due to be signed off in coming months, according to two EU diplomats who were granted anonymity to talk about the non-public deliberations. Läs artikel